Women who received these prompts added 37 minutes of weekly exercise to
their routine, say Vicki S. Conn, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University
of Missouri. Those who participated in the study but did not get reminders
increased their weekly exercise by only 12 minutes.
“Efforts to increase exercise among aging adults are important because
even exercise initiated in advanced years has potential physical and mental
health benefits,” Conn says.
Previous studies suggest that exercise can reduce the
risk of falls, arthritis-related pain and problems related to chronic
illnesses like
heart disease and diabetes
among the elderly. Conn’s study is the first to test the effectiveness
of phone and mail prompts to increase exercise among women age 65 and
older.
“The prompting intervention found effective in this study is particularly
attractive because it could be delivered by lay personnel, making it a
low-cost strategy to increase exercise,” Conn says.
The researchers tested two interventions to boost physical activity among
the 190 women enrolled in the study. The women were randomly assigned to
receive either motivational training sessions encouraging exercise or similar
sessions without motivational training. Then they were randomly assigned
again to receive either phone and mail prompts to exercise or no prompts
at all.
For three months, Conn and colleagues measured the women’s
physical activity through surveys, diaries kept by the women and data
from pedometers
that the women wore for a seven-day stretch.
Compared with the prompting, the motivational sessions
had no significant effect on the women’s exercise levels. Those
who received both the motivational training and prompts did not increase
their physical
activity
compared to those who received only prompts.
The researchers caution that prompts may not be as successful among all
older women, since their study included only women who were able to walk
on their own, did not have any mental impairment and were not cared for
by an assistant.
The study was supported by the National Institute for Nursing Research.
